It depends alot on which language you used before coming to .NET platform. VB programmers are more comfortable with VB.NET while C/C++ programmers are more comfortable with C# because of syntax.

It's too bad that VB.NET has to fight against the reputation of VB6 which preceded it. MS truly rebuilt VB.NET to be a world-class development language yet it still has the reputation of being a second-class language. While I agree that C# gives you a little more functionality than VB.NET (as mentioned earlier), it's a pretty small difference that is probably only utilized by less than 5% of the C# developers.

I think the languages are close and I think programmers should be able to pick one or the other with impunity:

http://www.rogerjack.info/2004/10/programmer-and-his-languages.html

{{{ Good article and the point on "fit for purpose" is well made. However, look at the way even MS positions VB programmers. VS 2005 IDE has no support for re-factoring in the VB.NET profile. According to some MS people this is because VB folk do more RAD and less hardcore components and re-factoring is more suitable for component development hence is only available in the C# profile. }}}

Santosh, you say you aren't a VB programmer. Why not let VB programmers speak for themselves.

Good article and the point on "fit for purpose" is well made. However, look at the way even MS positions VB programmers. VS 2005 IDE has no support for re-factoring in the VB.NET profile. According to some MS people this is because VB folk do more RAD and less hardcore components and re-factoring is more suitable for component development hence is only available in the C# profile. I am not a VB programmer, but i do think this is quite insulting to those developing components in VB.NET. Can you not develop pwerful class libraries in VB.NET? They even didnt have XML comments in VS2003 for VB folk. Why all this discrimination from MS itself?

I totally agree. The languages are more less exchangable.
But: If I'm looking for a high skilled OO programmer (who's really an OO expert) it's way much easier to find such a developer in the C# world. Because most of the C# developers have been C++ or Java developers before (or still do it). They use OO languages for a long time and are really high skilled.
VB.NET developers very often come from VB. Nothing against VB developers. They write great software. But comming to the OO skill, very often it's quite new for VB programmers.

That's why I prefer C# programmers. Because often, they are more skilled regarding to OO.

In VB.NET, you cannot create user controls for the Compact Framework. In VB.NET, you can't do implicit or explicit conversions. In VB.NET, you can't do operator overloading. I write commercial components in C# because C# has slightly more capability. I used to use VB.NET but there are just some things you can't do with it. VS.NET 2005 will close the gap somewhat.